(a) Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electronic device including a touch panel and a display, which is touch sensitive and is deformable by finger pressing manipulation.
(b) Background Art
Recently, mobile phones have begun to adopt touch screen technology in which the display also functions as an input. Such a function is implemented by applying an input means on top of the display panel called a touch panel. The touch panel is touch sensitive and recognizes when a user's, finger for example, comes in contact with the panel and inputs position information associated with the movement of the pen or finger across or on the touch panel. Redundant arrangement of buttons can be avoided and electronic devices having elegant designs can be provided due to the current state of the technology. However, since the touch panel is still flat, there is still no way to improve the sense of touch perceived by the user.
That is, unlike the normal keyboard of a desktop computer or the conventional type of a mobile phone where each alphabetic letter can be distinguished from another letter due to the presence of a certain projection/protrusion and/or between them and from the bottom surface, the surface of the touch panel is smooth surface without such projection/protrusion or a distinguishable partition. Therefore, it is not possible to improve the sense of touch perceived by a user.
Additionally, the electronic device proposed in Patent Document 1 is shown in FIG. 7. As shown in 7, a shape memory wire in the form of a coil spring is installed at four corners on the bottom inside a frame, and a display and a touch panel are overlaid on the shape memory wires. A processor turns on/off current of the shape memory wires to control expansion and contraction. For example, the shape memory wire may be configured to contract if current flows. In this way, the entire surface of the display and the touch screen is moved. With such a structure, (a) a frame is required to allow the shape memory wire to expand and contract; (b) both of the display and the touch screen are pressed down and then restored; and (c) only an instruction of a single event is valid.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.